The moms see it as an investment, Mejia-Arauz says: Encourage the messy, incompetent toddler who really wants to do the dishes now, and over time, he'll turn into the competent 7-year-old who still wants to help.

Research supports this hypothesis, says the University of New Hampshire's Andrew Coppens. "Early opportunities to collaborate with parents likely sets off a developmental trajectory that leads to children voluntarily helping and pitching in at home," he says.

Or another way to look at it is: If you tell a child enough times, "No, you're not involved in this chore," eventually they will believe you.

Gaskins was so impressed by the girls' enthusiasm for helping around the house that she started to study how kids in the village spend their time. She quickly realized that the young kids not only made big contributions to household chores, but also that they often did so without being told. In fact, many times, helping out was their idea.

In villages in Mexico, parents have accomplished what every mom and dad dreams of: Figured out a way to get to their kids to be helpful around the house. What's their secret?

Coppens says, a clear pattern emerged: "The Mexican-American kids, aged 6 to 7, were doing about twice as much around the house as the middle-class European-American kids, on average," he says. "And they were doing so, much, much more voluntarily."

We've done a bit of this with Penny, but I'd like to do even more with Monya: "In the U.S., we often think toddlers and young children simply want to play, Coppens says. But the indigenous moms see a toddler coming over to them as an indication that they want to help. The shift in mindset changes how the parent responds to the toddler's request to participate in chore, Coppens says. "All parents are interested in supporting their kids," he says. "So if you assume that your child wants to play, then you are likely to find a better way for them to play that's somewhere out of your way while you finish the chore." The result is a child separated from the adult activity and not around to learn about the chore — or about how to work together collaboratively. "But if you make the assumption the toddler wants to help you, but he just doesn't have a good understanding of how to do that — then you'll try to find a way for him to help," Coppens adds. "You will help him help." Over time, the "help" will grow in complexity. And the 2-year-old who stirs the pancake mix today could turn into the 6-year-old who makes the whole family breakfast — and feels darn good about it."

"Volunteering to help is such an important trait in kids that Mexican families even have a term for it: acomedido. "It's a really complex term," says Andrew Coppens, an education researcher at the University of New Hampshire, who collaborates with Rogoff. "It's not just doing what you're told, and it's not just helping out. It's knowing the kind of help that is situationally appropriate because you're paying attention.""